backform

See also: Backform and back-form

English

Verb

backform (third-person singular simple present backforms, present participle backforming, simple past and past participle backformed)

1. Alternative form of back-form
   • 1998, John Algeo, “Vocabulary”, in Suzanne Romaine, editor, The Cambridge History of the English Language, volumes IV (1776–1997), Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 73:

     Pennanen (1966: 150) also commented on the relative productiveness of British and American English in backforming new words: Although the coining of back-formations is at present mainly carried on in America on the various levels of spoken and written usage, it should be emphasized that the difference here is one of degree only.

   • 2001, Andrew McIntyre, German Double Particles as Preverbs: Morphology and Conceptual Semantics, Stauffenburg-Verlag, →ISBN, page 56:

     Those who deny the synchronic relevance of backformation would hold that backforming x from y is simply the folk-etymological assumption that x is the derivational source of y.

   • 2006, D. Gary Miller, Latin Suffixal Derivatives in English and Their Indo-European Ancestry, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 6:

     Thus, donate [1845] was backformed from donation [c.1425] to serve as a putative base from which the latter could be derived.